The Internet is quickly becoming an important resource for various types of information. Before buying an expensive consumer product, for example, many consumers use the Internet to obtain detailed information, reviews, and comparisons regarding the product.
In the automobile environment, as an example, many potential buyers appreciate the ability to view pictures of different automobiles before making a final purchasing decision. General Motors is an example of an automobile manufacturer that has provided a Web site with this functionality--an example is found at "http://www.gmc.com/jimmy/jm_color2.htm". The Web page example found at this URL (uniform resource locator) has a small image of a car, along with smaller color samples. As the user moves a mouse pointer over the color samples, the car automatically changes colors to match the sample.
Although a vast amount of information is available through the Internet, available bandwidth is often inadequate for delivering this information in a convenient time frame. Thus, the General Motors Web site page mentioned above loads rather slowly. An examination of the HTML source code for the referenced HTML page indicates that the page works by downloading a separate image for each of the different color options. As a user selects a different color, the image is completely replaced with a different image that has been previously downloaded in its entirety. Thus, eight entire car images must be preloaded to provide the ability to change between different colors. Although this scheme works, it does not make efficient use of available bandwidth.
Furthermore, current automated methods of digitally changing the color of an object in an image generally produce unacceptable results with objects such as automobiles that have highly reflective surfaces. Acceptable results can be obtained by an artist, but only with considerable manual effort. Alternatively, separate pictures must be taken for each car color. This is quite costly.
The invention, however, allows a car color to be electronically changed with little work by a graphics designer. Furthermore, the described method is very effective with highly reflective automobile surfaces.